As the Health-Gadget Market Swells, It’s Lights Out for Zeo’s Sleep Tracker

Reports are surfacing that Zeo, the company whose sleep tracker lets Quantified Selfers record their every toss and turn, is heading for the Big Sleep in the startup graveyard, if it’s not there already.

“This past week the Better Business Bureau listed the company as being ‘out of business,’” wrote Brian Dolan of MobiHealthNews. Dolan also said the company’s CEO appeared at a TEDMED event last week identified as the former CEO. “While there is no official announcement, no known buyer yet, it’s clear that Zeo as we knew it is now over,” he writes. The company’s Twitter account has been silent since the day after Christmas.

Whether or not Zeo is totally defunct (the company did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking confirmation), its apparent demise raises the question of how big the market really is for self tracking. Does anyone outside of a small niche of obsessive geeks really want all that data?

Since it launched about four years ago, Zeo became a favorite among Quantified Selfers and was often included in presentations about self tracking by digital health evangelist Dr. Eric Topol.

Yet while it may have been the darling of sleep trackers, “consumers weren’t that interested in complex and relatively costly methods for tracking sleep,” analyst Michael Gartenberg told Wired. Zeo sold for about $400 and required users to wear an uncomfortable elastic headband to sleep that by morning had left unsightly indentations on your forehead.

Yet there’s also clues that suggest personal data trackers such as Jawbone’s Up and Nike’s FuelBand might have broader appeal. More and more, these types of products are being sold at retailers like Best Buy and Target. Contestants on NBC’s The Biggest Loser wear BodyMedia products to help them lose weight. Fitbit is popular in corporate wellness circles. And last month, the Pew Internet & American Life Project released their first health data-tracking survey, which found that 70 percent of Americans track their health or that of a loved one. Of these people, 20 percent used technologies like spreadsheets, websites, apps or gadgets to keep tabs on their health.

Gartenberg believes the overall popularity of wearable sensors will continue to rise. “Consumers will use and interact with connected, sensor-enabled devices driven by apps and services,” he said. The industry could be worth $10 billion by 2015, he says, and a good part of that will be driven by personal health gizmos.

He’s not alone in his optimism. In December, venture capitalist Tim Chang told The California Report that “the market potential for this is vast. It’s everybody!” He’s already invested millions in personal tracking apps and gadgets.

So all those fretting over Zeo’s apparent demise, sleep tight. There will still be plenty of shiny new gadgets to help you track your zzz’s.